Higher earners and businesses will bear the brunt of a €20 billion tax rise in
a draconian budget that appears to have done little to advance President
Hollande’s pledge to relaunch a stagnant French economy.

The “combat budget”, as Jean-Marc Ayrault, the Prime Minister, called it, is
aimed at proving France’s commitment to the rigours of the euro by forcing
down the national deficit from 4.5 to 3 per cent of GDP next year.

But the Socialist Government’s preference for new taxes while trimming only
€20 billion (£16 billion) of France’s huge public expenditure was attacked
by the business world